Architecture News

The winners have been announced for the International Competition for the Design of the Prospekt Marshala Zhukova and Klenoviy Bulvar 2 Metro Stations in Moscow, Russia. The judges awarded the first prize for designing the Klenovy Bulvar 2 station on the Biryulyovskaya line to a consortium headed by Zaha Hadid Architects, while the first prize for the Prospekt Marshala Zhukova station was granted to the Russian firm, ASADOV Architectural Bureau.

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Richard Rogers has retired from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners after founding the practice 43 years ago. As one of Britain’s greatest living architects, he is known for iconic, hi-tech architecture, including the Lloyd’s building in London and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. The Pritzker Prize-winner has become one of the world's most distinct architects, utilizing bright colors and structural elements to create a style that is both recognizable and adaptable.

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Created between 2016 and 2020, WEEK and Axel de Stampa have put together a series of architecture gifs, Architecture Animée or Animated Architecture, revealing a playful and fictional side of famous buildings such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Fondation Louis Vuitton by Gehry Partners, and 1111 Lincoln Road by Herzog & de Meuron.

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Comparing revenues from the previous year, Architectural Record lines up annually a list of the Top 300 U.S. Firms. Based on the 2019 data, Gensler tops again the selection, for the ninth year in a row, and Perkins and Will takes the second position. Third, fourth and fifth places were presented for Engineering Architecture firms HDR, Jacobs, and AECOM. Other companies in the top 10 include HKS and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

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ZAS Architects and Denmark-based CEBRA Architecture have unveiled a new student hub at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus (UTSC). The new facility was made to be a learning landscape that promotes agile and asynchronous education through rooms and open public spaces spanning multiple floors. Artificial terrain flows from the outside in, creating a hybrid of social and study areas to support campus life.

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Rojkind Arquitectos has proposed a "Mourning Claim" memorial for COVID-19 victims. Led by Michel Rojkind, Arturo Ortíz Struck, and Diego Díaz Lezama, the project is envisioned for Times Square in New York and the Zócalo in Mexico City. "We claim mourning for its own sake. At the very least, we can care for them, for these architectural symbols that bear witness to our lives and the lives of others," say the authors.

While the first edition's theme was SHARE, and the second was CIRCULATE, the 3rd Tomie Ohtake Institute Leroy Merlin Design Award proposes REVIEW as its core concept—an opportunity to look at our social and environmental context, critically analyze it, and ask: how can a project contribute based on what is already in place? 

MVRDV and The Why Factory (Delft University of Technology) revealed “Le Grand Puzzle”, a book that holds ambitious ideas for Marseille, in the south of France. In fact, the study, made from 2018 to the start of 2020, “proposes a methodology, an agenda, and an analysis to portray today’s Marseille”.

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Part of Reparametrize Studio’s ongoing research on “Re-Coding Post War –Syria”, “House Re-Coding” is a new generation of housing solutions adaptable to the post-war cities. Focusing on innovation, collecting comprehensive infrastructural and socioeconomic analytics data through Artificial intelligence, the project seeks to envision the future of post-war cities, as a Smart urban development where all different actors come together, using the existing, and still useful, urban fabric.

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HED and Moore Ruble Yudell's new Santa Monica High School Discovery Building is currently under construction. Working with contractor McCarthy, the project is designed to embrace Open Building principles for a better K12 education experience. Made to prepare students for a dynamic future amongst social, cultural and pedagogical change, the 1,200-student facility supports different modes of learning for Santa Monica High School - locally known as Samohi.

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Although deploying four months later than normal (due to an obvious, unforeseen roadblock), the Metropolitan Museum of Art has revealed its 2020 Roof Garden commission, tapping Mexican artist Héctor Zamora to drop a timely intervention across the New York City institution’s outdoor terrace.

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The recently launched non-profit initiative TomorrowAnew (Amanhã (de)Novo) is selling 10 large-scale maps produced for the Brazilian pavilion’s exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 to help fight COVID-19 in Brazil.

The cartographies reveal different facets of Brazil and examine the nature of the visible and invisible walls that define the country. They were produced by the exhibition’s curators Gabriel Kozlowski, Sol Camacho, Laura González Fierro and Marcelo MaiaRosa in collaboration with 200 professionals from 10 different disciplines

The artwork is located at the Pedro de Valdivia Norte entrance of the Santiago Metropolitan Park. It was created by the creative studio Lira Arte Público—specialists in public space interventions led by curator and urban designer Esteban Barrera—in close collaboration with the Santiago Metropolitan Park team, who designed and implemented physical distancing signage, along with this artistic intervention consisting of a floor mural of over 1,000 m² created by Chilean artist Cekis.

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CAU/RJ has launched the eighth edition of its Cultural Sponsorship Program. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year the program will only consider projects featuring remote activities. Applications will also be submitted virtually.

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The winners of the Ideas Competition for the Casa de la Cultura, Former Governorate of the Department of Santa Cruz have been announced. Promoted and organized by the Municipality of Santa Cruz, the initiative invited Chilean students and architects to develop architectural proposals to convert the old Santa Cruz governorate building into the future Casa de la Cultura, highlighting the value of the property, which is considered of high heritage significance as the city's last remaining early 20th-century architectural vestige.

Under construction in the tropical rainforest of Cameroon, Warka Village is an integrated space for the Pygmy community, an isolated society located in the Mvoumagomi area. Constructed using only natural materials and ancient local construction techniques, the project, created by Warka Water and Italian architect Arturo Vittori, is currently operational, and expected to be completed in 2022.

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Collectives, is a series of aerial imageries by Brazilian photographer and artist Cássio Campos Vasconcellos, made from articulated photos captured during helicopter flights. On-going for almost 5 years, the project consists of large-format works portraying chaotic urban landscapes and exploring “jam-packed situations typical of our civilization”. Aiming to showcase the impact of human activity on the world, the collection of images is a visual investigation of our consumer society.

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Design practice RIOS worked together with historic preservation firm Page & Turnbull to restore and renovate the historic Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. As an iconic element of Griffith Park, the 5,900-seat outdoor music venue was built 90 years ago into the base of a canyon. Phases 1 and 2 included the removal of alterations to the site that obscured the historic character, as well as complete restorations of the iconic entry gates.

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